The first important point to consider is that the vast majority of sport participation is done at an amateur level, at so-called grass roots levels, such as a school rugby team or a Sunday football league at the local park. These participants vastly outnumber the professional athletes that many aspire to be like. This presents many challenges.
At present the amateur label stigmatises many of the excellent projects that are currently available. Most amateur projects are only kept afloat by the heroic management efforts of dedicated voluntary individuals. It is these individuals that Sport management systems seek to aid through the introduction of business and management knowledge, skills and principles.
Sports management systems (which as far as I know has no acronym) address this through the application of ICT principles mainly;
Communications
Administration
Information management
Finance
These are on the whole areas which consumed the most resources at grass root levels and due to the fact that individual skills are different they were all handled differently from club to club and from volunteer to volunteer. Applying ICT principles provides a clear guideline on how these activities should be approached and means that everyone involved is working towards a common goal in a unified way.
On the whole these Sport management systems are based on internet and mobile technology. There are very clear benefits to this approach, these days everyone has access to the internet. Whereas previously the access to ICT support was restricted by organisations funds now with an internet based system information can be gathered and amended with regular ease. It also makes the purchase of expensive software that can quickly become obsolete a problem of the past.
On the whole, the concept of a Sport Management Systems is clearly designed to aid the participants at a grass root level by providing the support that a professional organisation takes for granted. By doing so provides a bright future for all aspiring athletes and supporters of local sport.
“Dementia is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging.” Wikipedia
In the Eastern Health and Social Services Board (EHSSB), according to the Consultation Documentation dated May 2005, 9% of the total expenditure for the Elderly Program was used for Dementia Services.
This post will look at the key aspects of the Technology, Products and Services for Dementia Sufferers, and will assess to what extent are they facilitated in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board. A review will first be made of present technologies and products and will evaluate with an assessment of the CogKnow system and how it is different
Technology and Products
There are suprisingly few actual products on the market for dementia sufferers. However the products that there are, are mainly supported or backed by governmental bodies. The first Technology and Product that I found was
ForgetmeNot is a product that was developed by Inger Hagen a Norwegian lady who has had many years experience as a family carer. Her product is an electronic calendar where the day and date are shown clearly on a display. The display also has a picture above it to try and stimulate the user. The product focuses on the early phases of dementia when people can often forget what day it is, leading to confusion and time disorientation. An evaluation as part of the EU project on Technology, Ethics and Dementia (TED) found that this product was useful for people who actually remembered that the calender was there. However there were bad results indicating that there was very little benefit to someone suffering from high levels of dementia.
Dementia Signage Systems was the result of research and collaboration with the University of Stirlings Dementia Services Development Centre. There is very litte technology behind this product. The main concept is that through the use of Colour and a contrasting image, the signs would help dementia patients remember which rooms. The company also supply memory boxes which are used to store sentimental and cherished items in a box to remind people of the past. There is very little information as to what level of dementia this product would cater for but personally I would assume it would be best for people in the earlier stages of dementia with a high MSSE Score (A Grading System for the Levels of Dementia. A higher number relates to a milder form of dementia).
Product Price Tag: Large Signs £45 + Vat, Small Signs £30 + Vat, Memory Boxes £30 + Vat (Discount for Bulk Orders)
The Fold Telecare service is one of the main Telecare providers for people suffering with Dementia in Northern Ireland. As well as housing Fold Telecare supply support through their Telecare system by using the following systems.
Personal Intruder Detectors
Smoke Detectors
Fall Detectors
Bogus Caller Buttons
Temperature Extreme Sensors
Bed Sensors (detect if someone does not return to bed after a set period of time, this may indicate a fall)
Epilepsy Sensors
Door exit alarm (detects someone leaving the house and not returning)
Flood Detectors
Medication Reminders
Vital Signs Monitoring
Lifestyle Reassurance
These systems are connected to a 24 hour system that enable a care team to assist those with dementia as soon as one of the above sensors alert the call room that there is a problem. According to the NI Dementia Forum 37 of these systems have been implemented with no cost to the dementia sufferer however a system like this would not come cheap to a health and social care unit.
A similar system implemented in England by AlertaCall claiming to be cheaper that the ‘traditional’ telecare system remarked in response to a comment that “English Councils cannot afford their telecare plans” remarked
“…the PTG gives you £500 to spend per person. (£80 million divided by 160,000 people.) £500 per person may sound generous, but it isn’t. The cost of equipment may realistically be only one third to a quarter of what you need to allow when you take into account all your change management costs for staff training, service re-design, setting up response services, etc.
“A traditional, simple telecare equipment package costs £200 - £350. Therefore, you should be considering spending more like £850 per person. That is an extra £350 per person to find in addition to your PTG funding. If you are anticipating supporting people with ‘high level’ care needs, such as those with dementia, where the potential cost-benefit from reducing residential care is most attractive, you will need to spend considerably more.”
Obviously one of the issues raised with Telecare is that regardless of the system there are management, staff, telephony and response services to consider with the price of the Telecare system. The fold Telecare system seems to be more advanced than a traditional system as it links monitors and detectors to the persons body and dwelling.
Product Price Tag: According to AlertaCall a Traditional package would cost £200-£350 however with service overheads will cost well over £850 annually. More than the 1000 Euro price cap that a CogKnow (See Below) System would cost.
Cogknow is not really a product or technology, but it is currently a system that is envisioned by a team of researchers from across Europe. However what makes this system so interesting is the concept of the system. The system is envisaged to include sensors throughout the house connected to a central computing system in the house, which then alerts the sufferer. Not only will it be a sophisticated alert system, it will also remind the user to do simple tasks like make their dinner, call their family and take their medication. As CogKnow is currently a concept it is very hard to describe the key aspects of the product, however the technology may include a wide range of sensors, a central computing system, a broadband connection to a network and a handheld device which alerts the dementia sufferer when a sensor is triggered or when a task needs to be accomplished.
Product Price Tag: As this product is still in its research phase it would be presumptuous to give a price tag
Services Currently Run by the EHSSB
Currently there are a few care services run by the EHSSB they include:
Mental Health Teams
Early Stage Service
Carer Services
Day Hospitals and Day Support
Specialist Domiciliary Support
Adult Mental Health Services
The DHSS has predicted a sharp increase in the number of dementia sufferers in Northern Ireland due to the ageing population. The largest of these rises coming in the EHSSB Area.
It is clear that in order to make resources stretch that much further these services need to be facilitated where necessary with a practical, technical solution. A system such as that proposed by Cogknow has an initial investment and a maintenance investment, however due to the autonomic nature of the system it reduces a sufferers dependency on a care worker and will reduce the cost of care in the future.
Many of the systems that have been looked at have been funded in some way by the Government or Evaluated by government funding. However no system has yet become the solution to aid dementia sufferers in all aspects of their day to day life. With CogKnow research has been taken into account and used to try and provide the best ethical solution to aiding sufferers at the right price.
Innovation can be divided into several parts, for example –
1.Invention.
2.Development.
3.Production.
However, here we can use the term “innovation” to cover the entire process from beginning to end (within one entity, such as a corporation).
Open innovation is a new concept just beginning to be adopted by companies today. In his book, Open Innovation, Henry Chesbrough describes a new paradigm of open innovation that is opposite to the original closed model paradigm.
Essentially, the closed model is where advantage in a marketplace is gained by internal research and design process that, in secret can generate products that can be sold for large sums therefore generating income for further in-house R+D efforts (See below).
Diagram showing closed innovation paradigm.
Recently, mainly due to technological advances (and their intendent social changes) this closed innovation paradigm has begun to fall out of favour.
Examples of changes –
1.Greater venture capital.
2.Further opportunities to utilise previously failed technologies.
3.The increase in effective outsourcing.
4.Increased migration of workers causing their knowledge to de disseminated.
5.Technological information dissemination, i.e. over the internet.
Open innovation is where other information sources from outside the organisation are utilised. The reasoning behind this is as follows,
Closed innovation principles
Open innovation principles
The smart people in the field work for us.
Not all the smart people in the field work for us. We need to work with smart people inside and outside the company.
To profit from R&D, we must discover it, develop it, and ship it ourselves.
External R&D can create significant value: internal R&D is needed to claim some portion of that value.
If we discover it ourselves, we will get it to the market first.
We don’t have to originate the research to profit from it.
The company that gets an innovation to the market first will win.
Building a better business model is better than getting to the market first.
If we create the most and the best ideas in the industry, we will win.
If we make the best use of internal and external ideas, we will win.
We should control our IP, so that our competitors don’t profit from our ideas.
We should profit from others’ use of our IP, and we should buy others’ IP whenever it advances our business model.
As we can see from above the key concept here is to effectively utilise other information sources from outside the organisation to gain a competitive edge.
You might ask, is this wrong, is it akin to theft?
Not entirely.
Firstly, there is a lot of information that is publicly available that can be utilised, this can take the form of –
1.Discarded information, thought to be of little worth.
2.Disseminated information from a company working in a particular area.
3.Open Source materials disseminated expressly for the use of others.
4.Also, there are organisations who can be employed (outsourcing) to generate information too!
An example would be“xerography”. Where an unknown producer of photographic paper took an idea that other technology firms such as IBM had rejected and came up with the photocopier. Two years later the company had generated $60 million, in 1946!
Diagrammatic representation of Open Innovation.
From above we can see that it is not just the method of receiving information that is important in open innovation, but, the development of the information and the commercialisation of the product also.
In the development area collaboration with other entities is very useful, just as in the information-gathering stage and other development sources (open-source materials and outsourcing) can be utilised here also.
In the commercialisation phase, the products can be brought “in-house” for scaling up to production or out-sourced even further. Here useful information can be gained from other sources and leveraged to improve this phase.
Finally, to keep the system flowing, the organisation can release its information (to similar organisations or the public domain, etc.) and this will allow other entities to use the information within their systems or, perhaps, to improve upon the released marketable product (information which can be utilised at the Fuzzy-Front End).
It should also be noted that whilst in the beginning, open innovation, was mostly exhibited by organisations involved in the cutting edge of technology, it can be applied to other more traditional and older industries.
Open innovation can thus be described as the combining of internal and external ideas and information with internal and external paths to market to further development.
In conclusion then, the one key concept of Open Innovation is simply to get other people to do the work for you!
Web 2.0, the latest iteration of the internet is where users stop being passive viewers and begine to actively partake and contribute to the internet. Web 2.0 can have different meanings to different people, to some it is just a social networking site such as Bebo. To others its different technologies that combine to form a true information highway, one that flows both ways.
This includes
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Tagging
- Media sharing
- Audio/Video blogging and podcasting
- RSS
Traditional HTML was never reactive enough for Web 2.0 where the internet is used as a platform. Now, AJAX (or Asynchronous Javescript and XML) is used where when a page is loded only small amounts of information are passed back and forth from the server thus allowing a greater level of dynamic content within a webpage. For example, expanding a menu on a page would not cause the page to be reloaded over and over again. This mimics the responsiveness found in traditional desktop applications and is much more “natural” and speedier.
In competition to AJAX is Macromedias Flash which allows multimedia to be quickly downloaded and played within a page. This however requires a browser plug-in though most people already have it.
The usefullness of Flash is readily apparent, just look at YouTube.
There are a myriad of technology types utilised within the (virtual)world of social networking.
When most people think of social networking they think of Bebo or Facebook, however, this barely scratches the surface of what is out there.
Being facetious, we can describe the internet and everything that exists in that netherworld as social networking technology.
After all Tim Burners-Lee envisaged the internet as a resource where like-minded geeks (scientists) could share information with each other. Not much different from modern sites today, except in presentation and spelling.
If we take a modern site such as Bebo, we can see that rather than being a discrete system it is an amalgamation of social networking software and technologies that have evolved over the years.
For example, we have the ability to post a blog and chat with other users as well as provide other information in the form of videos, photos, etc.
However, as with many things in life, a jack of all trades is a master of none.
If you want to send messages to your friends you can do that via an instant messaging system. If you want to share files (legally of course) then you can do so via dedicated peer-to-peer and file sharing programs.
Of course, it is the functionality, features, and ease of use (as well as “coolness”) that brings in subscribers.
Perhaps one of the most interesting forms of social networking is within MMORPGs and more recently other online game genres. Here users can have a greater “virtual presence” within a virtual society and some excel here, more so than in the real world.
It is perhaps easier to think of these as not games but, as a social networking system with greater presentation (3-dimensional and real-time simulation).
In essence, social networking technology is communication technology whether discrete systems or systems that provide a gateway to the various routes of communication between internet users.
What is the result of all this technology? Information, and information is power as Robin Morgan said.
That is why if you strip away all the fancy layers of media players, photo galleries and message boards, at the heart of a social network site is a big database that stores information, updates it, adds to it and deletes it.
If you are a free spirit and feel like taking on the big names of social networking or perhaps find that unexploited niche market, here is a comparison of some social network software platforms and their capabilities –
This is an unbiased review of the sites and software available for administering a blog. They are broken down as follows with some personal interpretation:
Blogger:-Free and easiest to use (a beginners blog)
-Need to know HTML and Cascading Style sheets (slight drawback)
-Can FTP blog from personal website-Innovative Audioblogger system, enables user to use telephone to create blog entries
-Advertises “blogging within 10 minute set-up”, element of truth
Typepad-Pay per use system, three tiers
-Popular with journalists
-Highly customizable at ‘Pro Level’
-Typelist system allows easier URL interaction within blog posts for use in creating tags, links and other categories
Blogware-Great selection of customizable tools
-Difficult to use for advanced customization
-Option for a few non-blog pages, using FTP
WordPress-Can cope with large volumes of traffic
-Easily enables multiple administrators with varying levels of access
-Still used by professional bloggers
-Opportunity to review comments before they are ‘live’
-Attractive interface
-Vast availability of plug-ins, and therefore large number of customization options eg in terms of Youtube video uploads and picture galleries options made by friends of the site.
-Knowledge/Experience of uploading files to server preferrable
Movable Type-Used by many for non-blog sites, robust system
-Expert bloggers choice, not easiest to use but opportunity for customization greatest in list
-Rebuild slow and necessary after adding categories or new templates
-Comparatively expensive
Expression Engine-More of a content management system, rather than blog software
-Addition of picture galleries (resize,crop,rotate etc) and mailing lists on top of other regular features
-Expensive compared to other software systems
-Search engine friendly
-Templates highly editable
-Steep learning curve
-Useful for those managing many different sites, blogs or personal sites for multiple users with different user rights
Social Networking sites Myspace, Bebo and Facebook offer version(s) of blogging. These are largely text-based and take a back seat to the applications which proliferate with the aim to interact (or annoy as the case may be) people on your friend’s list. They offer blogs as an option, not as a necessity. They encourage interaction between the user and the applications available rather than being for blogging as such. Posts on Bebo are very limited and it allows (to date) only three blogs to appear on the application at any one time. Myspace has a slightly more developed blogging system, allowing user to subscribe to this blog. These are then catalogued for viewing at any time by the user. Facebook has a very limited type of blogging, allowing the user merely to make short comments about what they are doing or thinking at a particular time. Facebook wants the user to constatnly be doing something, interacting with the system and others. The activities of those in friend’s lists are there for you to see and can be dizzying! In a sense this is not really blogging as there is no option to view the history of these inputs, certainly not chronologically. A blogger should not consider any of these sites if determined to set-up a blog. This idea was bandied about within the group ourselves but it was decided that the systems used by these social networking sites could not accommodate multiple posts, comments and generally the interface was poor. WordPress seems to be ideal for us due to the level of administrating rights that is available and some of us had experience at using it already.
If you are new to blogging, it is easy to be confused about the many forms of blogging software available to you. There are two types of blogs to consider. Firstly, developer-hosted blogs are those which operate solely on the servers of the company that developed it. The user must create an account in order to setup their own personalized blog which is then under scrutiny from the blogging software company if it conflicts with the T&C it has in place to eliminate offending material. The more popular developer-hosted blogs firstly include MySpace which was launched in February 1999 and has since then remained as the most popular form of blog among Internet users. Blogger later arrived on July 31st 2000 with its own unique set of features which we will discuss later. For first time bloggers, developer-hosted blogs made the experience much easier for them as no software needed to be download, they did not need to own their own domain name and webspace and it was much easier to interact with fellow bloggers considering a network of users existed on the developer-hosted server.
The alternative to these blogs is the ones offering open sourced software meaning that they were free for anyone to use and users were able to install, alter and personalize the blogging software upon installing it on their own server. To the first time users, this option may be slightly confusing at first given the fact that it required more technical knowledge. One of the most popular forms of open sourced blogging software is WordPress which facilitates users that may wises to develop plugins and improvements which they feel would make their blogs much more accessible. The most recent version of the software is 2.3.
Now that we have briefly taken a look at the two types of blogging software available, lets have a closer look at the choice of blogs you have available to you and compare the features offered. Due to the number large volume of blogs available, below is a link to a chart demonstrating what features some of the most popular blogs have. Whilst that article may be slightly out-dated, many of the features are still relevant in terms of what they offer today.
As an individual or company there may be particular features which of are of utmost importance to you. An example of this being the RSS feed feature which allows people to keep themselves updated of all new content posted on your blog without visiting it. This can be done by people adding RSS feeds to their Internet browser meaning they can monitor several sites at once or simply having it setup on their PDA or other portable device to keep updated while on the go.
This chart is also outdated in terms of how many skins it mentions for each blogging software. However, it still is an important choice for most in terms of the flexibility they have when establishing a blog given everyone has their own unique view on what appears stylish and attractive to them. If I was to construct a product matrix of all the blogging software currently available…I could establish a blog of my own entirely on the subject given the vastness of blogging software options currently available to enthusiasts.
If you are new to blogging, it is easy to be confused about the many forms of blogging software available to you. There are two types of blogs to consider. Firstly, developer-hosted blogs are those which operate solely on the servers of the company that developed it. The user must create an account in order to setup their own personalized blog which is then under scrutiny from the blogging software company if it conflicts with the T&C it has in place to eliminate offending material. The more popular developer-hosted blogs firstly include MySpace which was launched in February 1999 and has since then remained as the most popular form of blog among Internet users. Blogger later arrived on July 31st 2000 with its own unique set of features which we will discuss later. For first time bloggers, developer-hosted blogs made the experience much easier for them as no software needed to be download, they did not need to own their own domain name and webspace and it was much easier to interact with fellow bloggers considering a network of users existed on the developer-hosted server.